LIMA (Reuters) – Peruvian President Martín Vizcarra faced a new challenge to his leadership on Friday after Congress passed a movement to start a lawsuit against him over leaked audio tapes and alleged links to a singer in a fraud case.
The question of whether to eliminate Biscay for “moral incapacity” will be debated and voted on next week, threatening to plunge the world’s largest copper manufacturer into crisis as it fights one of the world’s worst coronavirus outbreaks in the midst of its deepest recession. Decades. Vizcarra swore not to resign.
It took 52 votes from the 130 members of Congress to approve the start of the trial process, and the political trial itself wants 87 votes to remove Vizcarra from office. On Friday, 65 votes in favour, 36 against and 24 abstentions.
Peruvian Congress lawmakers, a mosaic of left- and right-wing parties with no absolute majority, have heard recordings of two conversations between Biscay and government officials about meetings with little-known singer Richard Cisneros.
Cisneros, who is going through Richard Swing’s call, has been awarded government contracts for motivational interviews worth 175,400 soles ($49,500), which are under investigation through peru’s Congress and General Audit, as well as allegations of alleged ties to the presidency.
Lawmakers said the recordings revealed that Vizcarra seeks to minimize his meetings with Cisneros.
Vizcarra took over two years ago after former President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski resigned on corruption charges. Last September, Vizcarra faced a past attempt to charge him with disability and dissolved Congress.
He said Friday that the new challenge represented “a plot to destabilize the government. “
“I’m quitting, I have a commitment to Peru, and I will respect it until the last day of my term,” he said.
Presidential elections must take positions next year and Vizcarra has already said it will be presented again.
“Now we expect Vizcarra to come and give its justifications,” said lawmaker Edgar Alarcón, head of the Congressional Oversight Committee who shared the audios in Congress.
Alarcón added that the date of the debate is still being discussed, which is expected to be expired next week.
Julio Ruiz, a Peruvian economist at Brazilian bank Ita-BBA, said the new turbulence could be due to the nervousness of recent “market-hostile” measures, a reference to Congress passing legislation that allows Peruvians to withdraw from their pension funds, and some other recent attempts to expel the country’s economy minister.
“If it keeps getting worse, it can have an effect on recovery,” Ruiz said.
(Report via Maria Cervantes; additional report via Stefanie Eschenbacher, written through Cassandra Garrison and Aislinn Laing; edited by Will Dunham)
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